Vault 48 3
by Kaibomb
Summary: Ignore me Beaches!
1. Chapter 1

I practically flew off of my mattress as I heard the scream, jumping to my feet and grabbing my bat from where it had lain beside me. Amber was just as fast, and had her finger on the trigger of her rifle and her rifle pointed towards the source of the noise in only a fraction of a second. Sienna on the other hand didn't budge. Apparently being in the pseudo military of the Enclave didn't make her a good soldier. Yellow gold light glinted off the barrel of Amber's rifle as it remained trained on the source of the noise as she strafed over to Sienna and kicked her to wakefulness.

"What the hell are you doing?" She shouted as she rolled off of her mattress and slammed down onto the hard concrete floor of the cafe. She looked at a Nuka-Cola brand clock ticking away in a corner of the ceiling, then turned back to Amber. "It's not even time for my shift yet! And what the hell are you aiming at with that stupid ri-" She was cut off by a second scream from the doorway that lead to the second story of the building. At that she scrambled over to where her old rusted laser rifle lay, snatching it up and aiming it towards the doorway where light from the small lamp we'd rigged up made shadows dance to an ungodly rhythm, seeming to twist and writhe on the ground of the doorway.

Hurray for Ghost towns.

"So what do we do now?" I asked, my eyes never leaving the doorway.

"What the hell are you asking me for!" Sienna shouted back in retort. "I'm a member of the Enclave not the Van Helsings! I already told you I don't believe in ghosts!"

From the peripherals of my vision, I could see Amber raise an eyebrow. "For somebody who doesn't believe in ghosts, you're sure quick to blame this on one."

I gritted my teeth. Possible supernatural screams were sporadically issuing through a doorway that may or may not lead directly to the cold depths of hell, and they were poking fun at each other. Naturally. "Okay! Regardless of ghosty properties or not, what the hell are we going to do now?"

"Keep your weapons on that doorway." Sienna said as she moved behind me, towards the door. There was the noise of her shaking and hitting the door that we'd boarded up. There was a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass, followed by a strange 'Whoooooorp' sound. She returned to her position after she fired a couple of shots at it. "Well, I don't want to freak you guys out, but I'm pretty sure we're trapped in here. I threw a trashcan against one of the windows that was partially unboarded, and it didn't break. It just cracked then somehow resealed itself." She took half a second to pull her helmet off the ground and put it on, and then pressed a small black indention on the side of it. "My EFS isn't picking anything up. What about yours?"

I'd totally forgotten about the EFS. I'd turned it off yesterday when it kept telling be about all of the radroaches that were swarming around in the grass, filling my vision with red. Now I turned it on again, and there was only one tick mark to be seen... directly in front of me. Shit. I shifted to the left and right to try and triangulate its position. It was only 3 meters ahead of me. Double Shit. There was a sound of a glass bottle being knocked around on the floor as Amber started moving towards the door.

"There's only one hostile, and I think it's upstairs." She said calmly. Her brown combat armor was silent as she moved forwards, the only sounds were her feet crushing bits of glass as she moved. I was suddenly glad for the thick boots of my Vault suit.

"How far can your EFS pick up hostiles?" Sienna asked, her voice distorted by her Enclave helmet, as she started to move forwards too.

"Thirty feet." Amber responded. She'd reached the doorway, and had her back against the wall as she began to peer around the black corner. She pulled her head back and slipped on her Security Combat armor helmet, then tapped the side, causing the eyes of the helmet to glow a bright red. Night vision, I guessed. Seriously, I want a cool helmet and armor too.

"Mine's fifteen. That means it's on the third story. Meet you there." Suddenly they both dashed through the doorway and started running up the stairs as a third scream ripped its way through the night. I scrambled after them, clutching my bat in one hand and fishing the pistol out of my rucksack with the other. I might not know how to use it, but I'd be damned if I ran in there to fight a screaming monster thingie without some firepower. I slipped the pistol into my jury rigged holster and gripped the bat with both hands as I ran up the stairs. I caught up to my companions as I ran up the stairs. Apparently even though the armor they were wearing was badass, it was still heavy and it slowed them down. I was the first thought the third story's stairwell doorway, and the first to see the monstrosity that awaited us there.

Attached to the ceiling was a little girl. Or I should say half of a little girl. Her lower half had been removed and her upper half was now attached to a spider-like machine that crawled along the ceiling, gears and pistons clicked and smashed together all over it, small arms armed with blades and chainsaws spun and twisted together, it's metal was silver white, and it gleamed in the light of my Pipboy's flashlight feature. Unfortunately for me, even as the Pipboy s light allowed me to see what I was facing, it let the mecha-monster see me too. I leapt out of the doorway with only an instant to spare as a bright white light flashed out of the little girls mouth and hit the doorway, causing it to crumble. Great. Now I was trapped in here with a mecha-monster. Alone. I pulled my little possibly nine millimeter pistol from my pocket and started to unload it into the machine. I pulled the trigger and the percussion that followed was deafening, the bullet ripped it's way through one of the monster's many legs and through the wall behind it, nothing stood in that bullets way. What the hell. I glanced towards my Pipboy screen and mentally made it flash to my equipment menu, where I saw a bright green solid box next to a weapon it labeled: The Terror of Vault 48. How did it know what to call it? Hell, how did it know that I had it? Freaking Pipboy magic.

I barely twisted to the right as my entire left side began to burn with pain. The Monster hand fired it's light cannon at me again, striking a few feet to my left, but the heat that it produced was more than enough to singe all of my exposed skin on my lower left side, which, thanks to my Pipboy and Vault suit, was kept to a mercifully low total of my fingers and a bit of exposed wrist. I fell to the floor and rolled, swinging the Terror of Vault 48 up to point at the monster that lay now directly in my sights.

!

It was dead after the third shot, which ripped its way through the center of the mechanical monster, tearing out several important looking components, but I kept firing until I'd emptied the clip. It hung onto the ceiling for a few more seconds, but then fell to the floor with a sickening crunch, landing on top of the half body of the little girl. As blood pooled around it, and her organs began to spill out onto the floor, it was my turn to throw up.

I'd finished emptying my stomach into a trashcan as Amber and Sienna burst through the rubble filled doorway. They both froze at the sight of the mechanical demon lying on the body of a little girl. Amber joined me at the trashcan, and Sienna just shook her head at it.

"What happened?" Sienna asked, getting straight to the point.

"The monster... was attached to the little girl. She didn't look alive," Was that really all I'd based it on before I opened fire and put her body in the way of harm? "And it fired beams of light from her mouth, so I unloaded into it with little Terror here." I wagged the pistol in the air. She turned back to the monstrosity and then back to my pistol.

"That, did that?" She asked in disbelief, then shrugged when I nodded. "That's a Life Support Unit. Model B2 if I'm remembering right. It was supposed to keep people who had been dismembered alive until they could be fixed up properly." She shuddered, a weird thing to see since she was wearing her full demonic power armor. "I guess this thing stopped waiting for people to be dismembered and did it itself."

There was a moan from a doorway across from us, directly behind the monster. I spun towards it and pulled out my bat, half expecting another monster. Only then did I realize that my EFS was reading friendlies behind the door. I walked towards in even as Sienna held her laser rifle steady, barrel never leaving that door. I tried to open it, but it was locked, so I got to work trying to pick it with my tools. It only took me a few minutes to understand that it was above my knowledge, so I did the sensible thing, and kicked the door open. Behind it lay a scene nearly as disgusting as the monster that had guarded it.

In one corner of the room there was a pile of dismembered bodies and body parts. There was blood everywhere, pooling around body parts like small lakes. In the opposite corner there were about twenty people shoved together, packed into a cage like cattle. A few looked like they were already dead, held up only by the others in the cage with them. I ran to the cage's door and wasted no time trying to pick it, instead smashing the lock off with my bat and throwing open the door.

To my surprise, the dead looking ones were a lot more energetic than the others.

Ghouls. People that have been rotted inside and out by radiation, and yet strung together by it in a way that makes them nearly impervious to age, makes them immune to radiation, sometimes even stronger in it's presence. Some still retain their normal selves, but all the more likely, they tend to lose themselves and become nothing more than vessels for their most primal instincts: to kill and consume.

At least that's how Ghoulie George the Godteller told it. Ghoulie said he'd been a preacher before the war, and his name was George, but he liked the way they three G's came together with the new name he'd given himself. He'd been alive since before the great war, and had been in the settlement of Scrappington since it had been founded nearly a hundred years ago. And he explained how the town had fallen into the predicament that I'd saved them from.

"See, we were in a right heap o' trouble when ya got us out of there. Doc Honeydew had gotten the entire town up there, saying that he'd witnessed a miracle, that he'd got his old medical bot up and running again. Unfortunately, it decided it didn't want to help us, it decided it wanted to 'Fix' us. So we got locked up in that cage, and it had been pulling one or two of us out a day before you got there, and choppin' us up." Ghoulie George patted me on the back. He was a pretty nice guy when you got past his rotting flesh and all. Which Amber and Sienna hadn't. Sienna just rolled her eyes at me and called me a ghoul hugger and Amber had payed another visit to Doctor Trashcan. As she was, she was munching on some two hundred year old snack cakes, trying her best not to look at the rotting corpse I was talking too.

"And that's why," Ghoulie George said with a sigh, "The town has decided to give ya a reward, of two hundred caps." He spat at a nearby bush. "O' course I'm the only one who put anything inta the 'Emergency Fund' so it's really like I'm giving you it myself." He turned back to me and gave me... what I could only take to be a earnest grin. "Not that ya don't deserve it. Mighty fine work ya did in there." As he said this he passed a bag full of bottlecaps into my hands. Awesome. He started chuckling (Though with his raspy ghoul voice it took me a bit to realize that he wasn't growling.) as he saw my reaction to the sack of caps.

"I forget ya'll 're new to the wastes. Out here we tend ta use old bottlecaps for moneys, or we just barter." Huh.

"Why would you use bottlecaps?" I inquired of the elderly ghoul preacher.

He chuckled a bit more before answering, scratching his head with a scarcely fleshed finger. "I've been through a lot since the bombs fell, fighting for myself, preachin' my message throughout the wastes, but I don't think I've ever asked myself that. One day I just saw people usin' caps, and it just worked, I guess." I shrugged and laughed along, and slipped the bag into my rucksack, packing it underneath a few clips of spare ammunition I'd found searching the upper levels of the cafe. I'd felt weird after seeing all of the people we'd saved go back to their normal lives; it felt like stealing. But hell, they didn't complain so I didn't either.

I'd taken to wearing Terror in my holster on my custom made armor, smiling at how comfortable it was, even though it was more than a few pounds heavier. After getting the townsfolk out of that cage, they'd pretty much done everything they could to help us out; which was how I'd got my newish armor. A old woman by the name of Beatrice the Wicked had offered to fix up my armor, and the results KICKED ASS. Most of my custom modifications had been removed, replaced by much cooler solid iron and steel platings, with lots of leather and wool padding in between. My new holster was a actual leather holster, which had been sowed into the Vault suit itself. The giant '48' still ran across the back though. Might as well as told her to take it off, but whatever.

After I shot that deranged robotic monstrosity, and we'd gotten the people out of that cage, we'd all headed downstairs to try to find out how to unseal the doors and windows, only to be informed that they'd unlocked the second the robot lost control of the building. It's scary how much control those pre-war scientists were willing to give these machines. The towns people had shacked us up in the local inn (Still no blankets.), and we'd gone right to sleep. Well, me and Amber had gone right to sleep. Sienna had decided to get into a drinking battle with a few of the local ghouls, and was still sleeping off her hangover. We kicked Sienna awake around eleven, then packed up, refilled out supplies, and headed out, waving farewell to our new friends.

I still didn't know why I was leaving. The new Mayor had offered us housing and hinted that there were jobs aplenty that would need filling, (With all of the people who'd been ripped apart by that machine, I didn't doubt him.) but Amber had been adamant that we leave the town, and get on with our 'Quest' to reach New Houston, and try to raise the city. She'd been talking to some of the locals, and after learning that none of them knew about New Houston s safety feature, had gained a even stronger desire to liberate New Houston from it's underground prison. Still, for some reason I felt like I should stick with her, so I did. Sienna came too, though she might have stayed if her judgment hadn't been so impaired by a massive headache and partial dehydration.

But all the same, we started off towards New Houston again, packs a bit heavier, and my armor a bit more badass.

Walking is boring. I'd gotten a sneak preview on the march from the Vault to Scrappington, but yesterday I was still in a a state of constant awe of the sky and the colors. But that was yesterday, and today was boring. We walked past burned down houses and forgotten gas stations, followed by the ever present golden green grasses that shifted besides us, blowing gracefully in the wind. I tried to start up a conversation with Amber, but all she'd talk about was guns. I mean, that's great and all, but it gets pretty dry after an hour and a half. So I went to the next person in my party, Sienna. The conversation I started lasted about five seconds, and went like this:

"Hey, so what's life like in the Enclave?"

"Your face."

Yeah. I didn't know what to make of that, so I chalked it up to her saying that I was good looking, and military life was much the same. Freaking Texans.

And so, I was left to talk to myself. That conversation was even worse:

-Why did we leave the Vault?-

-'Cause shut up.-

Man, I can be a prick. But it got me thinking. Why had I left the Vault? For the life of me I couldn't think of a reason, aside from, 'Because she's pretty and talked to me like a person'. In four hours, I'd gone from kickin' it easy in my vault to beating brains out in the wastes. I didn't regret it though. I mean, I had everything I could have ever wanted, and I traded it all away, for a taste of Adventure, which mostly involved me killing shit. Still, I couldn't bring myself to say that I wouldn't make the same choices again. Freaking Texans.

The sun was seemed to waver endlessly at its peak, perpetually at its hottest, and the storm that had passed through had made it so humid it we were practically swimming through the air. I tried to count the clouds but I got a head ache. Eventually I wound up just playing with the toggles on my Pipboy, exploring all of it's features, both old and new. I discovered some cool stuff, like a chart that actively displays my physical condition, including how close limbs are to breaking, and how far away I was from dying of dehydration, and I found another section that kept track of... stuff? It had tags like 'Quests Completed' and 'Creatures killed' (Both of which had a small one displayed promptly besides them.), but also stuff like 'Challenges Completed' and 'Bugs Squashed'. How it would know stuff like this escaped me. As I flicked through the menus, I my eyes fell back across the radio tab, where they pointed out to me that there was another broadcast available. It read, 'Enclave B9-A113 Distress Signal'. Great. More distress was all we needed. I flipped it on anyways, and was immediately assaulted by static so loud I missed my Pipboy twice before slapping it off of the frequency. Amber shot me a glare. I don't think she'd even noticed I'd stopped listening to her gun speech until now.

"I see you got that signal too?" Sierra said through her helmet's voice filter as she caught up to me with a few extra steps. "I got it about an hour ago, but it's just static. Happens all the times with all of the shitty reception out here." She gestured to a pair of crumbling metal towers off to the north.

I glanced north, and saw the metal towers, but shook my head. "I don't think that the signal is coming from anything like that. Those towers were probably out of date before atomic cars hit the streets, I doubt I could synch my Pipboy with them if I tried. No, this signal's too strong and clear to be coming out of one of those towers."

I saw genuine surprise in her eyes as she looked towards the towers again. Or at least I assumed it was surprise. Hard to tell behind a half inch of tinted yellow visor. "Then what do you think it was?"

"Did you catch the name?" I asked, and then held up my Pipboy to her so she could read it off when she shook her head. "It's an emergency frequency, probably only able to be decrypted by Enclave units only. Or special officers radios." I added the last part as she pointed to her Enclave helmet.

She shrugged. "Now that I think about it... most officers do have radios attached to their waists. To big to be the same type of model that's in our helmets." She stopped where she stood, then spun to look at me. "If that was a Enclave distress signal, we need to go help!"

I caught the urgency in her voice, even through her helmet's voice filter. "Okay, I'll try to decrypt it. Give me a few seconds." Sierra unslung her laser rifle as I fiddled with the buttons of my Pipboy, looking for a 'decrypt' button. It only took me a few seconds to find, but I had to dig a sensor model out of my packs to get it working properly. Meanwhile Amber had realized we were no longer following behind her and turned around and marched back to where we stood.

"What's going on?" She asked, eyeing Sierra's laser rifle.

"Someone's in trouble." I answered, watching as the decryption meter on my Pipboy slowly rose to one hundred percent. The Broadcast immediately began playing.

"-enty of them. We're without food, and I don't think we'll be getting any any time soon. Those... things seem perfectly happy to just wait as we all rot to death. They seem to be defined just perfectly to take us down. Ha, the only one of us who stood a chance was busy using the head. 2nd Lieutenant Ermical was the only one of us who might have been able to fight back. Fuck. I don't think any of us are making it out of here alive. Or dead. either way, we're not getting out of here except in those things stomachs. What a pain in the ass... Oh well. I guess I always wanted to die here of all places, it's got a nice ring to it. This is Private Dan Karric, signing off. God bless the Enclave." MESSAGE REPEATS "This is Private Dan Kerric, of squad thirty three six dee four of the American Enclave. We've been trapped on Hero's Hill by a swarm of monstrous bugs. Half of my squad's been wiped out, just paralyzed to await death by dehydration or being eaten alive. They chew right through metal. We're in between a burger joint and the memorial, and there must be at least twenty of them."

The message repeated itself.

"You've got to be kidding me! The 'People' in danger are Enclave!" Amber shouted as me and Sierra started towards the new marker on my map, 'Hero's Hill'. "A whole squad of armored badasses like you got their asses whooped, and you're both still going to go try to help them! If Enclave didn't stand a chance against them, what use are we going to be?"

I shrugged as I pulled my bat out of its sling on my backpack. "People need us." I said as I smiled back to her. She was right though. This was crazy. What was I doing? Freaking Texan morals.

Sierra spun around on her metal heels to face Amber. "Listen. It's my people who are stuck up there, not yours. If you don't want to come along, you're welcome to wait here." She then turned around and continued marching towards Hero's Hill. Amber looked at me hopefully. I could only shrug again.

"People need us Amber. I'm going to help." I gave her another wry grin. "We're Americans; we're supposed to help the unfortunate, right?" I marched on after Sierra. I heard her sigh.

"Well, at least I'll finally get a chance to shoot something I can kill. Maybe." She said begrudgingly as she jogged to catch up with us, slipping her helmet over her head.

It took us maybe a half hour to reach the base of Hero's Hill. The Hill itself wasn't all that large, probably smaller than the hill our Vault was built into, but in the miles of flatland that surrounded it, it stuck out. At the top, there was a large bronze statue of two men, dashing towards their enemies valiantly, frozen machine guns firing in their hands. A memorial for the Brazilian Inquisition, I guessed by their metallic Uniforms. The three of us were hiding behind a burned out nuclear powered car, hiding from a creature that none of us could have even imagined.

A big, shiny, silver fly. Sierra called them bloatflies when we first saw them, but my Pipboy registered them as Teslawasps. Regardless, we didn't take any chances. From our car, we could see fifteen of them, all buzzing about rather innocently for a species that was reported to have murdered a squadron of Enclave soldiers.

Well, innocently enough until one of the many streetlights that littered the streets flickered on, and was immediately set upon by every single one of the foot long insects, the other five swarmed out of a nearby building, all of them slashing and hacking at the lamp with razor sharp jaws. It took me a few minutes to realize they weren't just slashing at it, but EATING it. They very quickly devoured part of the steel casing and started biting and chewing at the internal wiring, feasting on the flow of electricity. I now saw how a bunch of Enclave soldiers in their semi-nuclear electrical suits would be a tasty meal for the Teslawasps. The same type of suit that Sierra was crouching directly next to me in. Shit. A quick look up and down the street leading up the hill showed me that they must had been eating all of the streetlamps one by one as they lit up. All of them had been eaten their empty metal carcasses laying everywhere, with the exception of one directly above us, and the one almost at the top of the hill, that they were feasting on. Suddenly the lamp above us sparked and sputtered to life, throwing a bit of extra light down on us. Double shit.

"We've got to get out of here." I whispered, grabbing Amber's shoulder and starting to sneak towards the abandoned burger joint half way up the hill, trying to keep abandoned vehicles between us and the monster bugs. Just as we all made it through the door of the 'Burger Bob's Grill and Bar', the lamp they'd been swarming collapsed and shut off, and they made a bee line for the light where we'd just been. I shut the door and let out a sigh. We were out of danger, if just for a second.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Sierra asked. "They ATE a streetlamp! How are we supposed to stand up to that?"

"Hello? Guns?" Amber waver her gun in the air as she checked and reinserted a magazine.

"You don't think that squad had weapons?" She facepalmed, metal clacking on metal as her glove slapped her armored forehead.

"No, I know they had weapons, but there's something else I know." She put her rifle down on the table she leaned against. "All of you Enclave have laser weapons, right? That's what you said, isn't it?"

Sierra crossed her arms, and (I imagined) frowned behind her helmet. "I might have said something like that, but so?"

"All those things out there are reflective. They're all shiny and silvery and metallic. I don't think Energy Weapons would have done shit to them."

Oooooooh. So that was where that was going. Okay. "So you're plan is just to shoot the living shit out of them?" I asked.

She shrugged. "It's worked before, hasn't it?"

"Uh, that's only worked for me a third of the times I've fought something. Though to be fair the others involve silverware and sports equipment. Do you really think we can take these things?"

she lifted her rifle back up and held it in a menacing manner. "If you can get me onto the roof of this building, I think I can take all of them down before they get to the door. They don't seem to be able to fly much higher then six or seven feet, so I don't think being exposed on the roof will be a problem."

"Do we have a backup plan?" Sierra asked, breaking her silence.

Amber looked to me. "You still have you're bat, right?"

Plan B sucks.

For the most part, it involved me standing just inside the door with my bat, with Sierra next to me with a lead pipe she'd found in the kitchen, ready to smack any of those wasps down if they decided to gnaw through the door. Still better than no plan though.

I knew plan A had started when I heard rounds starting to fire off on the roof. I stood stock still, Hoping she could get them all before they got to the door. I counted the shots... One... Two... Four... Ten... Fourteen... The bullets stopped. That meant that either she'd gotten nearly half of them with one bullet to two beasties, or they were to close to fire. I just hoped for the first one. Naturally my hopes were shattered, along with a pane of glass behind me as one of the creatures burst in through a window. Of course they would go for a window! Windows aren't invincible! I spun to start swinging at the Tesla wasp, but Sierra got to it first and slashed at it. It bumbled just to the right of the blow, and shot a barb from it's stinger as Sierra's momentum carried her past it. Now a barb like that wouldn't normally have done anything, but something was off about this one.

As the barb hit her abdomen, blue sparks arched all around her, the air smelling instantly of ozone as she crumpled to the floor. Well, now that was two reasons why these things could take out fully armored Enclave soldiers; their weapons did nothing to them, and the creatures had tiny EMP blasters on their arses. I brought my bat down on the Wasps head seconds later, cracking it's head's exoskeleton and sending the corpse spinning to the floor.

I started to run towards my downed friend, but two more Teslawasps flew in through the broken window. I slashed at one with a sideways swing and clipped its side, sending it flailing into the wall to my left, struggling to stay airborne. The second shot one of its barbs at me, and it struck me just above my left shoulder, sending electricity arching all about me. The pain was blinding, sending my vision into the red for half a second as the creature came in for the kill. Unfortunately for it, the electricity that exploded out from the barb wasn't nearly as debilitating for me as it was for Sierra, and I swung my bat in an upwards arc with my good arm, crushing it's mandibles and launching it into the ceiling where it hit with a sickening splatter, then fell to the ground. I dashed towards Sierra and started to shake her. Please don't let that have killed my friend. Friend? I'd only known her for, like, a day. Barely. I guest the wastelands do bring out the best in some of us.

"Stop shaking me!" Her muffled voice came through her helmet, the normal electronic sound was absent though. Relief flooded through me. Her voice must have been fried along with the rest of the electronics in her suit when that burst of electricity hit her. "I only heard fourteen shots, and I think you just killed two, so stay focused until you've killed the other four."

I gritted my teeth and looked back to the broken window; where another pair of wasps flew in right on cue. This pair was easy. I slapped one out of the air with my bat, sending bits of insect everywhere and spun to the side as I saw the other was about to release another barb. A quick blow to the head ended it's troubling behavior. I turned back to Sierra for a second to see if any of the barbs had hit her.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my neck, and smelled the ozone as electricity arched forth from a small chitin barb. Shit. I collapsed to the floor. Apparently even if I could still fight with taking one in the arm, a barb to the neck was debilitating. The other three floated in calmly, starting to cover their mandibles in the slime that allowed them to chew through metal and began floating towards Sierra. Wait, three? I guess Amber missed one. They began to list towards Sierra, lowering themselves to feed when a gunshot rang out. Then another. Then one more, and the last of the Wasps fell.

"I don't miss twice you... exoskeletoned bastards!" Amber shouted as she lowered her rifle, walking down from the employee stairs that she had disappeared up half an hour before. Ouch, good job for trying, but negative points for the shitty insult. It took to long too.

"That joke... sucked." I managed to say as I lay on the floor. Several of my muscles were still convulsing.

"Oh shit!" She shouted as she ran to my electrified body. "What happened?"

"Apparently the little 'Exoskeletoned Bastards' can shoot barbs that release a small electromagnetic pulse on contact." Sierra awnsered for me.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. It'd explain how they took on the Enclave."

I tried to get up but only succeeded in slamming my face against the cold tile of the burger house s floor. "Ouch." Was all I could manage this time.

It took more than half an hour for me to regain enough feeling and control of my legs to stand, and an hour after that to regain all the feeling in my fingers. At first glance, I'd assumed that Sierra's armor was shot, but upon closer inspection, I realized that it had protection against this type of thing, and I was able to turn it back on and reset it just by plugging in my Pipboy and pressing a few buttons. After we had Sierra back with us we were ready to head out, but she stopped us.

"We still need to find those soldiers."

Amber crossed her arms and scowled. "They're dead."

"So? I still need to bury them." Amber looked at me for confirmation that this was okay. I just shrugged. I couldn't stop her from tending to her dead compatriots.

It only took us a few minutes to find their camp, just next to the burger house. There were metal shells of armor scattered everywhere. There were twelve. I was surprised that Sierra didn't reject looting their weapons and ammunition, or even take the slightest offense when we started searching the bodies before pulling them wherever Sierra wanted. We were only able to find one laser rifle though, the rest had been chewed on by the Teslawasps, along with all of the Microfusion cells. As Sierra went about digging holes and dragging what was left of the soldiers into them, I noticed one of the bodies wasn't decked out in armor, but a dark green type of suit. 2nd Leutenant Ermical. He hadn't been wearing power armor, so he might have been able to fight those creatures, or at least escape. But instead he lay there on the ground, electrical barb through his neck, and chest cavity burned out by acid. I saw his dog tag hanging from his neck and picked it up. Don't really know why I did it, but I slipped it into my bags and poked around the camp some more. There were only two tents, and the first one I checked was just full of sleeping bags (Though I scored a couple packs of 'Junk Food' and another kickass magazine on heavy weapons.). The second tent was much more rewarding. It was obviously the Officers, and had a desk that they must have pulled out of one of the buildings. Several clipboards lay on the tables, along with a Terminal and a what looked like a weird keychain. I downloaded the Terminals files onto my Pipboy for later then picked up the keychain. It was of the trademark 'Vault Boy' holding a crowbar and a bat while staring innocently off into the distance, and there was an Inscription on the bottom:

-Charisma is most effective when you can back up your arguments with a crowbar!-

I chuckled and slid its metal ring onto a similar one on my Pipboy, where it fit more snugly than it had a right too. I felt more 'Crowbar Charismatic' Just holding it. I looked to my right to see a large metal orb, about a foot in diameter, sitting on a table, several antennae sticking out of it in all directions. I tapped it but received only a metallic echo as a response. I turned to walk out when I heard a small robotic voice echo out of my Pipboy.

Please don't leave. Did you get my signal?

I spun back to the orb, which was now glowing and clicking and whirring to life. As I watched, it rolled it's burnished metal body off the table and wobbled in the air, floating as if held by some invisible hand. It shuddered in the air and dipped a few inches, but rose back up. Make that an invisible hand with Parkinson s. It whirred and beeped excitedly, and a the small robotic voice spoke through my Pipboy again.

I am Enclave Sandstorm Eyebot number B9-A113. Did you receive my signal?

I hit it with a bat. 


	2. Chapter 4

In my defense, It was a scary robot. Okay, a bit scary.

Okay, it was a floating orb that said 'Hello'. But still, I don't think I'm to blame for hitting it with a bat. I mean, it was whirring and beeping and displaying messages on my Pipboy! That's scary!

Amber smacked me over the head for what must have been the hundredth time. "You! Smashed! A friendly! What the hell does 'Green, keep it clean; Red, it's dead' mean to you anyways!"

I flinched repeatedly as she hit me over the head with the sweet Heavy Weapons magazine I'd found, using force to emphasize each word. It was like being back in kindergarten again. I snatched my magazine away from her avenging hands. "Okay! I get it! It was dumb! I'm sorry!"

She glared at me. "Oh, you will be if Sierra can't get that thing up and running." She frowned and glanced over to the corner of the tent where Sierra was tinkering with the bot on a table, tools laying all about her in disarray. Then she said in a hushed tone, "Did you see her reaction when she saw what you'd done to it? I could have sworn she was going to cry!"

I looked at Sierra. Her white undershirt and sweatpants were covered in oil stains, and her hair was mussed from both being inside of a helmet all day and the fact that she had a habit of rubbing her head when she was confused, even when her hands were covered in mechanical oil and grease. I felt like an idiot for hitting it and making her so... sad like that. There wasn't a proper word to describe how bad I felt, or how much I hoped she wouldn't stay like that. "Yeah. I hope it's all right. If you'd both just let me take a look at it-" Amber snatched the magazine back from me and swatted me with it again.

"No! We're not letting you touch it! Last time you touched it you crushed half it's internal components!"

"That was an accident!"

"You hit it with a bat!"

I rubbed my temples with my hands. This was a fight I couldn't win. I sat down at the 2nd Lieutenant's desk. Amber took a seat in a metal chair against one of the walls and started reading my magazine; Heavy weapons or not, she still liked guns. I looked to Sierra again. She worked without pause, hands constantly working and twisting parts together. Her black Power armor sat next to her, shining in the dim light of a small floodlight powered by a fission battery. With nothing to do, I flipped to the notes section of my Pipboy and began going over the Lieutenants journals.

-12:43PM;3/5/2267- First day on the job today. I knew they'd be field promoting somebody today, but me? I'm nothing special! Sure I've my kill count could climb to the moon if each kill was an ant, but hell! I'm a soldier, not a leader! I guess I'm lucky though, since I'm still not really making any decisions. Head gave me some pretty specific orders: Search the town. Didn't even tell me what I'm looking for. Still, easy orders.

-3:21PM;4/7/2267- Two days later and I've nearly gotten Court Marshaled twice. What the hell? This isn't what I signed up for- Oh wait, I didn't sign up for this at all. Some of the boys found a pre-war liquor store, so guess what they did? That's right, they donated it all to medical for anesthetics. And by that I mean they got drunk and raped a fellow soldier (Female). Naturally. And who get's blamed for this? Me. Cause you know, fuck me.

-2:11AM;4/14/2267- Whoo hoo. Another week of this and I'll be raping chicks too. I'm mot sur if I'm clear to be writiing this, buf uck it. i barely can type anymore... here's my report: being an officer sucks asss. we havn't found shit, and headquarters has started demanding results. results from NOTHING. they want me to start shitting gold bricks from the crap they've been feeding me. All i know is that there's NOTHING HERE. some boys fround a tunnel under the city, so well check that out later today. or tommorow. i have no Idea. hurray for whiskey though, it's the only reason i can fall asleep now.

-9:33AM;4/16/2267- Fuck. I really hope there's a way to delete that previous entry. I'm not good with computers. I'll ask Private Santos tomorrow. Good news though, the tunnel under the city was full of good stuff, old computers, mainframes, unused bots, the works. All we have to do is decrypt one little computer, then we're in. With Benign here, we'll have it done in no time.

My eyes flickered to the top right corner of my Pipboy. 5:45PM;5/2/2267. There was only one entry left.

-9:45PM;4/27/2267- Day have turned into weeks. Benign was only a few bytes from decrypting it when he went into lock-down mode. His sensors read some sort of danger in the ventilation system while his guards went to go grab a Nuka and locked him up tight. He's already started broadcasting an emergency signal, even though he's not damaged. Some of the men saw ticks on their EFS too, but they say it'd been flitting back and forth for a couple days, probably radroaches. I don't think so though... Must have been one hell of a monster to scare him to this. I'm going to have the boys try to flush out the vents tomorrow, try to get whatever's in there out. Geez, I don't remember any of my COs having problems like this, so why me?

Oh god. They must have flushed the wasps right out of the tunnels where they were feeding on some innocent source of electricity and accidentally made themselves out to be targets. I saw the battered hunk of metal Sierra was still fiddling with in a new light. He'd woken up for the first time in at least half a week, finally free of hostiles and danger, and I'd smashed him with a bat. Man did I feel like a dick. Suddenly there was a rush of mechanical whirrs and clicks, and the fwoosh of an air regulation system, and the rusted orb slowly ascended into the air, much steadier than he'd been before.

"I got it!" Sierra shouted, kissing her wrench and plasma cutter.

My Pipboy beeped shrilly as a message popped up on the blue luminescent screen.

Are you going to hit me with a bat again?

I could feel my face go red. Even machines were making fun of me now. Great. "No, I'm not going to hit you again." I grinned at the Orb. "Sorry about that." I wonder if it could understand emotions?

The Orb beeped again affirmatively. Good. That wasn't... fun. The letters appeared on my Pipboy's screen.

Sierra ran over to me and wrenched my arm towards her so that she could see the screen. She smiled back up at me and snatched her helmet of the desk and donned it, fingers tapping at its side.

"Eyebot, report code and objective." She said, voice issuing forth from both the helmet and where the rubber neck piece ended.

The Eyebot- Why would it be called that? It didn't look like an eye, and even if it was used for spying, why not call it a Spybot or something?- clicked and beeped some more, and my Pipboy dinged again.

As I said before you... Interrupted, I am Enclave Sandstorm Eyebot number B9-A113. Objective: ERROR. OBJECTIVE NOT FOUND. The Eyebot gave a worried beep, then dejectedly looked towards the ground. How the hell did it have emotions? Better question, how the hell was it showing them without a face!

Sierra pulled off her helmet, then turned to me. "We need to take this back to the Enclave."

I raised an eyebrow. "Uh, okay, why are you telling me this?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot, hands on her hips. If she didn't look so... appealing like that I might have subconsciously started being smarter. Her small hands were smooth and pale beneath her armor, her short hair shone with grease and natural color, her skin was stained with oil from the Eyebot, but somehow was all the more enticing. Her waist was so perfect, her figure was like a slightly ganglier and taller Amber, and her chest was- Okay, back on topic. Seeing that I really didn't have any idea what she meant by it, she explained.

"I'm bringing it along." She said. I kept staring like a cow met with a train. She facepalmed. "I'm asking for permission." Now that caught me off balance.

"Wait, what? Why?" I looked to Amber who just mimicked Sierra's dissapointed look.

"Because you're the leader." Sierra calmley explained. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I took a few steps back. Sometimes it would really pay to be able to pick up on things like this before I looked like a total retard. "Since when?" My gaze switched rapidly between Amber and Sierra. Amber laughed.

Her eyes sparkled with mirth as she giggled like a schoolgirl at my frustration. And not the good schoolgirl giggle! The 'I just punked you and now you're going to have to live with the results of my actions forever' giggle! I'm a teacher, trust me, I know my schoolgirl giggles! "Since forever, oh great and glorious leader." She mock curtsied. GAH!

My head was a pool of confusion and misguided fantasies, and hurt like hell. "I can't be the leader," I said, "I don't make decisions."

By this time Sierra was smiling too. Why the hell had I gotten into an adventuring party with two beautiful sadistic women! "You sure didn't hesitate to run into that room with a robotic monster before us."

"That was, I mean... You two were going up there without knowing what you were up against! I couldn't just let you go in there with something that dangerous!" I stuttered. Somehow I felt I was just digging myself deeper.

Amber whistled in false awe. "Pretty heroic, oh Great and Wonderful Leader." She'd capitalized it this time, I could feel it in my blood. "And don't forget when you charged the Spoon King. Who knows what he'd have done to me if you hadn't been there."

"Spoon King?" Sierra gave a wry inquiring grin to Amber.

Amber's smile just widened. "Just before we met up with you, we found a woman who'd been kidnapped by an insane raider who called himself, 'The Spoon King'. When he saw me, he tried to shoot me, failed, then charged. I could barely react, but before he could take two steps, Grey had gotten past his defenses and struck him down with his Magical Bat of Justice!" She acted it out as she told the story, using the rolled up magazine as a bat, and striking out against an imaginary enemy.

"Hey, wait, that wasn't how it-" My Pipboy beeped again. Under the weapons tab, my bat had been replaced by Justice. "Not you too!" I shouted at my Pipboy. Freaking traitor!

Amber and Sierra broke down in laughter. I couldn't help myself from smiling too. It was good to see them happy, even if it was at my expense. The Eyebot floated over to me and whirred curiously (What does that even mean!) as my Pipboy beeped again.

If you are the leader, why are these two making fun of you? Do they not understand the chain of command? I have an educational slideshow if you wish me to educate them on the subject.

That was when I laughed. I patted the bot on the head and said, "Not necessary Benign." I looked back to the pair, still laughing, seeming only a step from crying from laughter. "It's better this way. Everyone's happy." The Eyebot beeped happily at being called it's old nickname.

And for just a moment, they were all happy, and so was I.

It took the rest of the night to bury the Enclave troops. I collected every single one of their name tags. We decided to spend the night in the camp, and we all took shifts watching guard, but nothing happened. It was peaceful.

The morning was more of the same. Grey dawn sprung from blackest night, starting with a light rain shower, which made the air perfectly miserable for us to continue our march in. We set out early, leaving Hero's Hill behind, walking again towards New Houston. I tried reading my heavy weapons magazine while walking, but I just ended up tripping over a malevolent rock and getting a massive headache. Luckily, my conversations with my companions were much more fruitful than yesterday's.

"So what do you know about New Houston?" I asked Sierra. We passed by more grass. A common theme in the Texan Savanna.

Her gaze rose to the sky, pondering. "Not much, really," She began, "I know that it was pretty advanced before the war, and even around it there's still a ton of valuable tech to be salvaged." Well, we already knew that from Scrappington. Her tone grew dark. "I hear it's haunted though. I told you before, I'm not one to believe in ghosts, but when everybody whose gone within five miles of the City Core has gone missing, you know somethings up."

"Missing?" Amber Chimed in, slowing her pace to fall back from the front of our column.

Sierra shrugged. "I know that generally in the wastes, people die, not go missing, but whenever somebody tells me stories about New Houston it's 'Missing' not dead or lost. I've heard some pretty crazy theories on it too." She chuckled in her armor, voice regulator churning out electronic babble. "The dumbest I've heard involved New Houston being inhabited by Mountain Lion People, who hunt down anyone who enters their domain, then sacrifice them to their gods. The most likely though is that it's full of Taurens, and they pick off anyone who gets too close to their tribes. It's still probably radioactive, so it'd make sense."

Taurens. There was that word again. "What are Taurens?" I asked her.

Her mask turned to me for a second, then she hit her forehead with a metal glove. "Sorry... How do I keep forgetting you're fresh out of a vault? Taurens are... Cow people, I guess." I nearly tripped, then looked back up her, confusion evident on my face. "Well, when the bombs hit, apparently a lot of the herds were far enough away to not be vaped or killed, but close enough to mutate heavily. Some of the Longhorns of old mutated into the Taurens, which are, like I said, Cow people. They stand about seven feet tall, faster than any man or woman, stronger by two. Horns could spear you through like a knife through hot cram, and that's assuming you got anywhere close. Most Taurens are weapons experts. They could pick you off at a thousand yards, and with their freakish strength, I've heard they can use machine guns with one hand, and Anti-materiel rifles without a stock."

Wow. Perfect, another thing to look forward to in the wastes, cows that could waste me at any time from half a mile away.

"They're mostly peaceful though," She continued, "I've never heard of one attacking unprovoked, and I've seen a caravan of merchants with Taurens for guards, as well as Taurens trading with merchants. They live in small tribes, and don't fight except for dominance. I've been told that they fight all their infights with their fists and horns, no weapons allowed." She turned to me and smiled. "Pretty badarse, no?"

"Yeah, I guess," I answered weakly, "Ever done business with them yourself?"

She looked at the ground and tried to scratch her head (Failing miserably because of her helmet.). "No, the Enclave... doesn't look kindly at mutants and Ghouls, or Taurens either. I don't have anything against them personally, but the Enclave teaches that we're the only true humans left, and we need to vaporize the rest. Some of us are bigoted arse wipes who deserve to get a plasma grenade slipped into their pants, and for some reason their in charge." She looked back to me. "Not all of us are like that though." She said softly.

I gave her a small grin. I knew she wasn't like that... I hoped she wasn't like that. No, she couldn't be like that, she was way to nice, and to passionate about the people who weren't. Still, there was a bit of doubt wedged in my mind, which I ignored. She was one of my only friends in the wasteland. She couldn't be like that.

We kept walking, silent except for the occasional cough. A bit after that, I started up a conversation with Benign. "So what's the difference between a Sandstorm Eyebot and a normal one?" Benign clicked and whirred as an answer appeared on my Pipboy.

A standard Eyebot is made of steel and aluminum, equipped with a small standard laser module, and a large array of broadcasting equipment, for relaying data. Huh. So they were spybots. Sandstorm Eyebots are... Different. We are made of Carbon meshing, made to be invulnerable to the hostile weathers of the Texas Territory. We also lack most of the broadcasting equipment that standard Eyebots possess, the space is instead filled with a Regentec Mechanism, and we have a opportunistically ballistic magma cannon.

Yup, that made about no sense. "Tell me about those last two features."

More beeps. A Regentec Mechanism allows for small nanobots to repair me given enough time, and proper resources. Total healing should take only a few hours, given enough scrap metal and spare electronics nearby.

I raised a brow, then began in a hushed tone, "So, when Sierra... Fixed you, was that her, or the nanobots?"

The Eyebot gave an appreciative whistle. Okay, I really have no idea what that means, but not my problem. Given enough, time, I would have been able to repair myself, but without her help, I wouldn't have been able to find some of the more important parts and would have had to fabricate them, which would have taken several weeks if not months.

I nodded. "And the lava cannon thingie?"

Without proper ballistic materials in stock, I will fire a beam that is near the strength of AER9 Laser Rifle, but when proper ballistics are to be found, I launch a near liquid hot projectile at the enemy. This projectile can reach up to 2000 Degrees, hence, Magma Cannon.

Now I whistled appreciatively. That's pretty bad ass, especially for a robot who'd gotten trashed by a vault dweller with a bat. Then I bit my lip. There's no way he'd have... But maybe...

"Hey, Benign, do you have any games?"

Benign let out a few serious beeps then a... Whimsical whistle? Seriously? How? Then a another message appeared on my screen.

Though designed for very serious military operations, my team mates were often... less serious. I have been programmed with basic gaming programs, such as PADDLEBALL, C4 DETECTOR, and 20 QUESTIONS. A few more games are on my hard drive, but without a terminal up-link, they would be impossible to play.

I'm pretty sure my grin could have encompassed the globe twice after I read C4 DETECTOR off of my small blue screen. That's all we'd had at the Vault, and I'd only had part of the code that I'd been able to pull off of the Vault's mainframe. I'd tried to patch it but the results had been way to easy to beat. "Can you transfer C4 DETECTOR to my Pipboy?" I said, already pulling out my transfer cable.

Benign gave an affirmative beep, and I plugged the cable into a protected slot that slid open. Another message popped up on my screen.

They're all very small files, compared to the 82 Terabytes on your Pipboy, would you like to transfer them all?

I nodded, but then said yes when I realized that Benign needed a vocal confirmation. For a robot who could beep and whistle emotions, he sure didn't understand facial expressions. My Pipboy took all of the data in greedily, the transfer taking only a few seconds. I was just about to activate C4 DETECTOR when a message box popped up.

Can we play 20 QUESTIONS?

I was confused for just a second, but then it hit me. This robot had been alone for more than a week, locked in his own mind, and he misses his friends. This wasn't just another computer, and it wasn't a monster like what we'd seen in Scrappington. This was a Sentient being, a living thing in it's own right. Hell, it had a personality I'd seen with my own eye's in it's writing and beeps. And he was my friend. Or at least my companion, if only for now.

I nodded again. I am not a smart person. It took me even longer to realize he was waiting for vocal confirmation this time. "Sure, do you want to go first?"

He beeped happily then began to send messages to my Pipboy, asking what animal he'd thought of.

Two hours of being trashed later, I brought Amber and Sierra in on the game. Turns out when He'd said he'd been 'Programmed' to play this game, he meant he'd had an entire animal encyclopedia dropped into his brain, which he reported had a total of 17,931 species, and every time he saw a new one in the wastes he recorded an entry on it. With the three together, we were finally able to guess his animal (The Gola Malibme) with Amber's random knowledge of obscure birds, and it was her turn to think of an animal. Benign guessed it in three turns. It was 'Cat'. I facepalmed. How could somebody so well versed in pre-war birds choose 'Cat'?

And so the game continued as we walked the long stretch of road between Hero's Hill and New Houston. Only 15 Miles to the 5 mile mark where people started disappearing. Naturally my friends started disappearing well before that.

Three hours later I awoke in a dark room, cold metal shackling my arms to the wall I'd been pinned against. My chains clinked as I tried to bring my Pipboy into my field of vision, but I was forced to wrench my head to the side to check the Chronometer. My head pounded like nothing I'd ever felt before, a sharp pain going through it like a bullet. That thought pulled me to another. Oh right, I thought, I got shot in the head.

"Great. You're awake." A raspy male voice came from opposite me. I heard chains rattle as he gave a racking cough. I slammed my head back as I jumped when I saw two small green lights peering out of the darkness. The voice laughed. "Welcome to Hell, baby."

I tried to turn on my EFS, and did so, however the effort redoubled the pain of my headache to the point where I doubled over in pain (To the best of my shackled abilities.). When I regained control, I looked down to see one green tick mark directly in front of me, where the green lights sat in the darkness, and another sat somewhere off to my right, and red ticks surrounded me. They were all moving rapidly, back and forth over and over again. Radroaches, I guessed. "Where am I?" I asked the lights who'd welcomed me.

There was a raspy snicker. "I told you, hell." Another crackle. I was already starting to hate this thing. "Sorry. I've been in here to long. I think I'm starting to go insane. Or just coming back from already being insane. Anyways, you're in the Maudeville Asylum. They used to keep crazies here before the war, but ever since those damned raiders got their hands on it, they've been using it as a base of operations." I checked my EFS again, a Green tick appeared, then passed directly through me. Multiple floors. An Asylum? Raiders? I tried to think about it, but all I could remember was something small and hard smashing through my head, then the sound of a rifle going off. After that it all turned to black, and pain. I tried to remember more, but I was nearly immobilized by pain. Instead of that I decided to question the voice.

"Don't worry about it. Do you know how I got here?" I asked.

"You got here..." The voice paused thoughtfully,"About, maybe two hours ago? I didn't think you'd wake up, so I didn't really pay attention. The raiders brought you in, said something about a blond and an enclave they'd caught, and they were going too-" Amber and Sierra! Shit!

"Where are they now! I need to get out of here now!" I struggled against my bonds. "I need to save them!" I accidentally hit my head against the wall, jarring pain shooting through my body again. Damn it I was getting tired of that!

"The raiders probably put 'em upstairs with the rest of them girls they get. Least that's what I hear they do with them. Probably taking their time getting to know them if you know what I mean." I didn't. I tried to shake my head to throw off the pain, but it just intensified. I bit down on my collar, trying to ignore the pain, to discover a stimpack I'd hidden there for emergencies. Score! I pulled it out and injected myself, using only my teeth, and suddenly clarity began rushing back to me. Oh he had meant rape. That made sense. Thinking about it, it was actually a pretty clever innuendo and usually I wouldn't have even needed the 'if you know what I mean' thing but- Shit! He meant RAPE!

"Magical talking voice man! I need your help! I need to get out of here and save my friends!" I shouted at the green lights. A metal bar rang out as someone hit it, accompanied by a gruff voice shouting at me to shut the *Ducks* up or else he was going to make me his little *beach*, then footsteps echoed as he walked off. The green lights twinkled in the dark. I got the feeling Magical voice man was smiling.

"I've been in here for far to long," He whispered, "And I think you're right. I was saving this for an opportune moment, but I'm tired of being patent." There was a quiet metallic scrape, and the faintest clink of metal, and suddenly the green lights were right next to my face. "You're a good guy, right?" He said.

"No, I'm no hero." I responded. It was the truth.

"I didn't ask that. Are you a good person?" He reiterated.

I thought about it. For some reason I didn't feel like lying to this guy. I wasn't really a good person. I'd just as soon lie as tell the truth, I would run from a honest fight... but I hadn't. I'd fought monsters, saved people, and kicked ass! I'd killed one of the most badarse monsters in the wastes with a spoon for god's sake! "I'm pretty awesome, yeah." I let out a small laugh. He chuckled with me.

There was a click at my left, then my right as the pressure the cuffs had been applying was lifted. I rubbed my wrists, then looked to my Pipboy. I was relieved to see it wasn't damaged, but then again, the thing could probably take a nuke itself and be perfectly fine. Without notice, the lights blinked out and I was left alone in the dark. There was another click a few moments later, and a heavily muffled scream seconds after that. The voice returned. "You have a light on that thing, right?"

I nodded. It was still pitch black. I am really starting to feel dumb. "Yeah, why?" I asked.

"You can turn it on. The guard won't be causing us any trouble any time soon."

I flicked on my Pipboy light, and was rather surprised by what I saw. First: The cell we'd been sitting in was actually in pretty good repair, despite the smell. Two: Outside in the hall was the body of a raider wearing yellowed goggles, laying in a still growing puddle of his own blood. Third: Standing up at the door of the cage was a man of medium height and a light build, wearing a old but clean suit and fedora, and also a spandex mask with glowing green goggles. Magical voice man was very well dressed. And carrying a bloody combat knife. I rose from where I'd been crouching, and walked over to the door. "Nice to meet you. What's your name?" He asked, reaching out to shake my hand.

"Grey. Doctor Grey. And you?" I grasped his hand and shaking it.

"Bass Dorinshi my good doctor." Once again I got the feeling he was smiling even through his mask.

I walked over to the dead raider and searched his body. "You don't mind, do you?" I asked Dorinshi, who shook his head. I found a Sweet looking trench knife, a poorly repaired and partially jury-rigged chinese pistol, and two Professor Jalapenos. I tossed one to my new friend. I mentally face palmed. I needed to start making friends less easily. Checking my own pockets I found they'd taken everything on me, from Terror and Justice to my last bobbypin. I stood up and looked back to Bass, just in time to catch a glint of my Pipboy's light flicker off a small metal object in the ribbon of his fedora. So that's how he did it.

He started walking towards a metal door, and signaled me to follow. He crouched and tapped to his goggles, then turned to me. "Turn off your light now. It's best we get the drop on guys like this." I nodded then flicked off my light, room falling back into darkness. A crevasse of light appeared as he opened the door and began to sneak out. I dropped down to a crouch and followed him as he snuck through the door, Stabbing his knife into the back of a raider standing outside the hall with all the cells, covering his mouth with a spandex gloved hand. Nice kill. So neat too, very professional, like his clothing. I wonder who he was? A professional killer out here in the wastes? It didn't seem likely, but heck, who knew what happened out here. I was shaken out of my thoughts by a fist passing just by my head, then the force of a raider slamming into me. I threw the raider to the side and drew my knife out to bear, but the raider didn't get back up, and I saw a small stab wound in the back of his neck, spouting blood like a geyser. I need to start paying attention. I turned back to Bass, who'd already started moving down the hall -Looking pretty damned nonchalant for a guy who just stabbed two people to death-, following the signs that said, 'Stairs -' to -Wait for it- a stairwell. I took just long enough to pick a couple of clips off of the newly departed and then ran after him.

We silently ascended the stairs, finding no resistance. On the second floor, we found one raider sleeping, and I watched as Bass slit her throat. Now, I was a bit shocked by this. Killing women wasn't something I'd do, except under the worst of circumstances, let alone while she was sleeping. But then again, she was a raider, made obvious by her clothes and the dismembered arm she was using as a pillow, and I guess it was better to take her out than leave her to terrorize the wastes. It still didn't sit right with me. I searched her body like the rest and had the awesome fortune to be reacquainted with my pistol, Terror, as well as twelve stimpacks, also probably mine. She only had a few clips of ammo though. Still, I scrounged it all and followed Bass as he searched the rest of the floor. As we walked through a doorway, a shot rang out on the floor above, and we froze. Seconds passed. Minutes. No second shot. Shit. I turned to Bass who calmly continued searching the room. I could only hope that that was friendly fire and not one of my friends being shot. I had to hurry. Just as we were leaving the floor, we heard a sob, a quick, half suffocated thing, from a cupboard just adjacent to the dead raider. I held my knife in front of me as I opened the cupboard, rusted hinges letting out a small squeak as it resisted, but complied.

Inside was a kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, covered in both chains and injuries, a gag in his mouth and tears streaming down his face. It only took a moment for my knife to slash through his gag, and barely longer to use the spiked guard to break through the rusted chains. He whispered a quick thank you, more whimper than words, then ran through the door to the stairs, no footsteps echoed to reveal his presence. I never heard any shots, so I assumed he got out all right. Me and Bass sped up the steps, this time Bass was following me as I charged up the steps, slowing down only enough so that I didn't make any noise. As I opened the door to the third and final floor (at least there were no more stairs leading upwards) and found a raider, pointing a sub machinegun at the head of a captive, cooing horrible words with a voice sweeter than it had a right to be. The door scrapped as I opened it, a small sound, but enough for her to turn to the door and see my eye peaking through. She spun towards us, ignoring the moaning wastelander, bringing her gun to bear at the door. Or at least she would have. As soon as we made eye contact, I burst through the door, spinning my knife around in my hand so that the blade pointed towards the ground and bringing it against her neck, crimson splattering the floor, my knife, and me, as I caught her body with my other hand, slowly lowering it to the floor. She hadn't even had any time to shout out, and her death had been entirely silent. Man, maybe I was cut out for the assassin business too.

When the captive looked up again, his eyes brightened as they fell across the corpse of his tormentor. He began to say a prayer to... whatever god this wasteland believed in, but I brought a finger to my lips and he got the meaning. I cut the ropes that bound his wrists, but instead of running off like the other captive we found, he picked up the gun of his captor and checked the mag. He nodded to me and I nodded back. He wanted to help! Kickarse! He pointed to the door at the end of the room, decorated with a human skull and entrails, and whispered to us. "Those are your friends in their right? They were shouting about you as they dragged them in there. Assuming your their moron friend with the funky hairdo, which, judging by your doo, I'd say that's you. I'm no hero, but I'll be damned if I'll let women die if I can help it." Finally, another chivalrous soul like me in the wastes... and did they really think my hair was stupid? Bah! pushing it out of my mind, we've got people to save! I nodded to him again. We surrounded the door, and I tried the door. It was unlocked, but I felt the need for a surprise. I'd be willing to bet that these were the last few in the building, so might as well use all the surprise we had left. I was crouched just to the right of the door, ready to kick it in, when it swung out suddenly and a raider stuck his head out.

"Hey Nalla! You want a piece of... What in th-" He cut off as I kicked the door, slamming it right into his raider face. I looked to Bass, then to the wastelander, both of which looked back to me, not knowing how to react. Suddenly, the door swung open again and another raider walked out.

"Nalla, did you just kick the door in, and..." A Bass's World War I combat knife slammed into his heart. "that's not a... good... thing..." He fell to the ground and the three of us dashed through the door. There were four raiders in the room over all, one on the ground, bleeding at the nose from where the door had crushed it, two more were looking at the door from where they were... enjoying, a pair of corpses, and the last was whipping out his junk and approaching a pantless Sierra, who was tied up just next to Amber. Every face in the room turned towards me.

"I present you, your doom!" I said as I stepped out of the doorway into the room, leaving the way open for Submachinegun Wastelander. So hip. I don't know why I ever said anything, let alone that. Even just a second after I said it all I hoped was that Amber and Sierra were too out of it to have heard what I said. Meanwhile mister Wastelander opened fire on the two who were getting it on with colder counterparts. Another second went by and they were more full of holes than the cold ones they'd been enjoying. I put on a burst of speed and ran at the raider who was planning on dancing the non-consensual mammalian tango with Sierra, and opened his abdomen with a slash from my trench knife, then pulled Terror from its holster and opened fire on the raider with a broken nose. In two seconds, every red tick on my Pipboy had vanished, and we'd saved my friends. Bass's goggles just stared at me.

"Did you really just say that?" He said, still standing at the doorway.

I'm pretty sure I blushed, which is just as embarrassing as what I'd said. "Let's never speak of it again." I mumbled as I started toward Amber and Sierra.

Another slash from my knife (Man, I really loved this sweet knife) and their wrists were unbound. One more and their ankles were free too. Amber Immediately scrambled to her feet and hugged me, thanking me and even giving me a small kiss on the cheek! Score. Meanwhile Sierra stayed motionless. Oh god, I thought, please don't let them have gotten to her! I put a hand on her shoulder, and whispered her name, only too have her slap my hand away. I glimpsed her face. It was cherry red. "TURN AROUND AND TELL AMBER TO GET ME SOME PANTS!" She shouted. Oh. OH. I spun around, my own face going red again. Amber just giggled as she grabbed Sierras pants off the floor and left my field of vision. I could hear Bass's raspy laughter back near the doorway. Freaking Bass. Freaking Amber. Freaking Raiders. Freaking Texas.

Freaking Awkwardness.

Footnote: Level 3 Reached. Melee Weapons 45. Guns 45. New Perk; Swift learner- gain an additional ten percent experience wherever experience is earned.

Quest Perk; Semi-Mysterious stranger- People tend to share your goals, and as such, your enemies. Humanoid Friendlies are much more likely to help you out in a battle than before. 


End file.
